Navigate

FOUNDATION MISSION

The Cleveland National Forest Foundation is a nonprofit group dedicated
to preserving the plants, animals and other natural resources of Southern
California mountains by protecting the land and water they need to survive.

Few areas in North America display the concentration of plants and animals
as diverse as those found in Cleveland National Forest. The chaparral,
meadows and pine-oak woodlands that grace the mountains and foothills
are especially rich in unique species.

President Theodore Roosevelt and
Congress established Cleveland National Forest in 1906 to protect this
mountainous area of Southern California. Since that time, civilization
rose around all sides of this wilderness province, and the original
national forest boundaries enclosing two million acres diminished to
a modern-day area of 650,000.

One by one, unique wildlife and plants
disappeared, including the California condor, grizzly bear, black bear,
long-eared kit fox and pronghorn antelope. Today, many of the remaining
plants and animals of Cleveland National Forest are threatened by urban
development: puma, mule deer, golden eagle, bald eagle, California spotted
owl, pond turtle, San Diego thornmint and many more mammals, reptiles,
butterflies and plants. Large areas of open land are critical for their
survival. The forest provides valuable watershed and grazing areas and
on its mountains are found two world-class observatories.

Excessive
development in this remarkable ecosystem would bring about the demise
of foothill and mountain life as we know it. Like the organs of a body,
the chaparral, wood-lands, meadows and streams are vital to the health
of a forest. Therefore, we must vigilantly protect, defend and secure
our wilderness for the well-being of all Southern Californians.

The Cleveland National Forest Foundation is committed to sustainable
regional land use planning in order to stem the tide of urban encroachment
of our wild-lands.